Delphi complete works of.., p.254
Delphi Complete Works of Alphonse Daudet (Illustrated), page 254
The lawyer made a gesture of discouragement.
“Oh! in that case...”
His experience as former bâtonnier kept him from finishing the sentence, but in his heart he knew there was nothing to be done. On the contrary, it was now his business to dissuade the poor woman from a dangerous and useless law-suit. The Authemans were too strong; as to reputation, morality, and fortune, they were beyond the power of attack. She must try artifice, she must be patient. Besides, even if a suit were begun, during its progress Éline would become of age, and naturally...”
“Then there is no justice!” cried Mme. Ebsen, in the disconsolate accent of the peasant woman of Petit-Port, who in her own sorrow remembered the grief of that other. Raverand, to whom a card had just been presented, rose:
“Perhaps the Keeper of the Seals might demand an official investigation as to the whereabouts of the young girl.... But how can we persuade the Minister to undertake so delicate a step?... unless... you are a foreigner, a Dane, are you not? By all means, see your Consul.”
Then, as he conducted them out, in a low voice to the Countess:
“After all, the child is not unhappy.”
“No; but she is.”
“Oh! she is a mother, and all mothers are martyrs.” And, changing his tone: “And how is it with you? How is your husband doing?”
“I know nothing about him.”
“You are, then, still implacable?”
“Yes.”
“Nevertheless, he is more steady.... He is taking quite an interest in politics.... His last speech at the Chamber...”
“Good-bye, my friend...”
In the carriage the mother said: “I am cold.” Her teeth were chattering. “Will you drive me home, Léonie?”
“Why no, of course not.... We are going first to see this Consul. Where is he?”
“Faubourg Poissonnière.... Monsieur Desnos.” Desnos was a great furniture manufacturer, whose woods came from Norway and Denmark, and it was in the interest of his business that he had obtained this post of Consul. He was, moreover, totally ignorant of the country he represented, as to its customs, its language, and even its geographical position. The offices were on the right side of a court, overlooked by the windows of an immense manufactory that extended far in the rear. The air was filled with a tumult of hammers, saws, lathes, and kept in motion by the bass pulsations of a steam-engine. The same activity prevailed in the interior; only here it was exhibited by the scratching of pens, the moving of heavy folios, the crackling of the gas burning over bowed heads.
Here, as at the lawyer’s, the name of the Count d’Arlot gained them instant admittance, and Desnos immediately came forward to receive the ladies in his office, — a large, handsomely appointed apartment, separated from the designing-room by a glass door, through which could be seen rows of men in aprons, seated or standing, and all working in silence.
“Is there a light upstairs?” asked the manufacturer, supposing that the ladies had come to look for furniture. When he learned that their business was with him as Consul, his smile became frosty, and his debonair Parisian face serious.
“The hours of the consulate are from two to four... However, since you are here, ladies...” With hands crossed over his vest, comfortable and well filled as the vest of an important merchant ought to be, he listened to the distant rumbling of his engine, which jarred the floor and windows of the room.
Ah! bon Dieu! What is this that they are telling him? Poison, abduction! Why, they should carry this story to the Ambigu. In the heart of Paris, with a telephone in his office, and Edison lamps in his workshops, how was it possible to believe an occurrence so incredible? Suddenly, in the midst of the recital, told by the two women alternately, — for Mme. Ebsen was so nervous that the Countess was obliged to come to her assistance, — Desnos arose, indignant. He could not hear another word. Autheman was his banker.... Their house was the richest, the safest in the city; their honor the most scathless.... Never could such infamies have taken place at the Authemans’.
“Believe me, Madame...” He addressed himself altogether to the Countess, as if he considered the other beneath the notice of such an important personage.... “Do not repeat such calumnies. The honor of the Authemans is the honor of the entire Parisian tradespeople.”
He bowed. Time was precious to business men, especially toward the end of the day and the week. However, he was always at the disposal of the Countess. The hours for the consulate were from two to four. Ask for the secretary, M. Dahlerup.
The clamor from the shops rumbled through the black court. Carts and drays rolled heavily over the pavement, making it vibrate like a springing, board. The two women endeavored to make their way to the coupé, Mme. Ebsen talking and gesticulating in the midst of all the racket.
“Ah! well, I am all alone, since everybody else is afraid!”
Workmen, unloading their timbers, jostled against her. She tried to move out of their way, and just escaped the wheel of a truck. Deaf, heavy, awkward, and terrified, she uttered little childish cries of fear, when Léonie came and took her by the hand, wondering, as she did so, what would become of the poor creature, if she were left all alone in her sorrow to struggle with the world. No, she would not abandon her. That investigation of which Raverand spoke should take place. M. d’Arlot should see the Minister the first thing in the morning.
“Oh! how good you are, my dear!” And in the obscurity of the carriage the mother’s tears burned Léonie’s gloves.
To ask a favor of her husband, a stranger, although living under the same roof, to whom henceforth nothing of her life was to be known, was a genuine sacrifice that Léonie d’Arlot was making for her old friend. She thought of it all as she drove home from the Rue du Val de-Grâce. She recalled, one by one, every sinister detail of her wrongs. They were as poignant in her mind as if they had happened yesterday; the little blushing bride in her calling dress, her ingenuous laughter, her whispered confidences, as if to an older sister; then “I must go and see my uncle;” and as they delayed returning, how suddenly, warned by a presentiment, she had surprised the guilty man; how base and ignoble he had appeared, like some thief, with his stammered words, his pallor, his trembling hands.
What sort of an existence had her husband led since then? What effort had he ever made to win her pardon? All his time was passed at the Club or in the company of courtesans. During the last six months, however, having tired of his mistress, a former actress, who kept a little trinket-shop in the Avenue de l’Opéra, with a back room for assignations, he had thrown himself into politics, and had found this, too, a trinket-shop, with its background of coarseness and treachery; and now his own fireside had become attractive to him, even necessary as a place in which he might bring his friends together and win their influence. Without daring to ask it, he would have been much pleased to have his wife receive, and go into society again — to forget the past. No, no, never that. They were separated until death.
After this oath of relentlessness she began to question herself, and considered her loneliness. Constant attendance at church did not in the least fill the overwhelming emptiness of her days, nor was there any relief in following up the celebrated preachers of the time; the long hours at Saint-Clotilde upon her knees were most dispiriting. To be sure, she had her child to preserve her from wrong: but is it enough in life not to do evil? “Ah! Raverand is right, — I am implacable.”
During the last few hours, however, she had become less unforgiving. It was as if the living warmth of the mother’s tears had softened her heart and made it more human; at all events, the Ebsen tragedy had strangely touched her, had drawn her from that mystic torpor from which she saw no deliverance, no end, but death.
“The Count is in the salon with Mademoiselle.”
For the first time in many months the salon was lighted, and before the cabinet piano, on a high stool, sat the little girl, superintended by her governess, a faithful soul, with sheep-like profile. She was playing a study, and the Count, watching the little fingers of his child wander over the keys, nodded his approval to the measure of the music. A large shaded lamp illumined this family scene.
“A little music before dinner...” said the Count, bowing, with a half-smile that moved his short, blond beard — it was gray in places — and his large, sensual nose, to which his parliamentary position was to impart an expression of benevolence and dignity.
In her agitation, caused by this revival of the semblance of domestic life, she began to excuse herself for being late, to explain the reason; then suddenly she exclaimed:
“Henri! I have a favor to ask you.”
Henri! It was years since he had heard that name, for in the Avenue de l’Opéra he was called Biquette. The governess led the child from the room, and while removing her gloves and hat, which her maid, took away, Léonie told of the steps she had taken for Mme. Ebsen, of how the very name of Autheman seemed to inspire every one with awe, and of Raverand’s advice to apply to the Keeper of the Seals. She was standing before the chimney-place, slender and charming, animated by her day’s experiences, and the rosy glow of the fire, at which she was warming first one and then the other of her dainty, high-arched feet. He explained that what she asked — an appeal to the Minister — just at this moment offered many difficulties. They were in the midst of serious, very serious dissensions. There were the decrees, the law concerning the magistracy. She took a step forward, and lifted to his face her lovely eyes, in which there was a tinge of green:
“I beg of you...”
“Anything that you wish, my dear...”
He made a movement, as if to embrace her, to press her to his heart, when the door was suddenly thrown open, and an automatic voice announced that the Countess was served. Henri d’Arlot drew within his own his wife’s arm, and passed into the dining-room, where the child, already seated at the table, watched them with inquiring eyes. It seemed to the husband that the soft round arm trembled a little, as it pressed upon his.
This was the only result of Mme. Ebsen’s day’s work.
XIV. THE LAST LETTER.
“PRIDE, IT IS the only living thing in that woman.... She has neither heart nor bowels.... The Anglican plague has devoured them all. She is as hard and cold as... well! as this marble....”
The old Dean, seated before his fireplace, struck the mantel violently with the tongs, which Bonne, without saying a word, took from his hands. In his excitement, he did not notice what she had done, and continued the account of his visit at the Hôtel Autheman.
“I reasoned with her, begged, and threatened her. All I could obtain from her were cant phrases about the lukewarmness of faith, the value of great examples.... She certainly talks well, the wretch! There was too much jargon about Canaan, but she is eloquent and convincing — I am not astonished that she turned that little head.... See what she has done with Crouzat. Well, at any rate, I told her what I thought of her, mind you!”
He arose from his chair, and strode up and down the room.
“After all,” said I, “who are you, Madame? By whose authority do you speak? In God’s name? No, it is not God who is leading you. In your actions I see only yourself, your own wicked, cold heart, that desires something, I know not what, in life, and seems always to have a grievance to avenge.”
“Was the husband there?” asked the little old woman, in a frightened voice. “And did he say nothing?”
“Not a word.... He only smiled in his awkward way, and gazed at me with eyes that burn like a lens in the sunlight.”
“But sit down. You are in a terrible state!” Standing behind the chair in which her tall husband at last consented to take a little rest, Mme. Aussandon wiped the broad, full brow — it was a thinker’s brow — and removed from his neck the silk muffler that he had forgotten to take off.
“You become too excited, indeed you do...”
“How can I help it? Such a great misfortune, such an injustice! How I pity that poor fellow, Lorie!”
“Oh! as for him...” she said, with a gesture of indignation against the man who had for a time been preferred to her son.
“But the mother! That mother who is not even allowed to know where her child is concealed.... Imagine yourself before that woman, and her silence, which the cowardice of men makes possible. What would you do?”
“I? I would eat her head... This was said with such a fierce snap of the jaws, that the Dean began to laugh, and, encouraged by the resentment of his wife, he went on:
“Oh! But they have not yet seen the last of me. Nothing shall prevent me from speaking, from denouncing them before the public conscience... even if I should forfeit my place by doing so—”
Unfortunate word, that suddenly reminded the wife of the seriousness of the situation. Ah! no, not for a minute. From the moment she thought his position in jeopardy, it was not to be considered....
“You will please me by remaining perfectly quiet in the matter.... Do you understand me, Albert?”
“Bonne... Bonne...” pleaded poor Albert. But Bonne would hear nothing. If no one but themselves was concerned, they might risk it. But there were the boys. Louis was expecting his promotion as Sub-chief, Frederick was looking for a Collectorship, and the Major had a longing for the Cross. Powerful as were the Authemans, they had but to make a sign....
“But my duty?” murmured the Dean, visibly weakening. —
“You have already done your duty, and more. Do you suppose the Authemans will ever forgive your harsh words of to-day?... Listen....”
She took both his hands in hers, and reasoned with him. Would he be satisfied, at his age, to be running around again officiating at marriages and burials? He was always saying: On the hilltop. On the hill-top. But he ought to remember with what difficulty he had climbed there. At seventy-five it would be extremely hard to tumble down to the bottom again.
“Bonne.”
It was his last word of resistance, and this he made for honor’s sake; for his wife’s reasonings only confirmed the advice of his colleagues. He had consulted several members of the Faculty awhile ago, as they had walked together around the little rectangular courtyard, a place only a little less sad and dreary than the implacable egoism of man. Ah! yes, the thought of again climbing the hill, with his aged, trembling hands, frightened him; but what was still more appalling was the prospect of the domestic scenes, the terrible cyclones through which he must pass, if he should take the audacious step that he had meditated, after his visit to the Authemans.
But what a blow to give the poor mother! She had come to him so full of confidence, having no other support than his, amid the indifference of all around her. And now he too has stolen away, like all the rest, obliged either to flee from that terrible sorrow, or else to deceive her with vague, false promises.
“Wait!... this is but a crisis... God will not permit such a thing.”
Ah! a brave Dean he, the Dean of hypocrites and cowards.
From this day, no more rest, no more contented labor on the hill-top for old Aussandon. Remorse, that sinister intruder, installed itself at his table, and followed him everywhere he went. It attended him as he walked along the sordid Faubourg Saint-Jacques, or waited at the corner of the Boulevard Arago until he should come out from his lectures. Although it was the time for sowing his seed, the pastor dared no longer work in his garden, for there his remorse assumed a visible form, in the pale face, the swollen eyes of the mother, who watched from her window to see what religion could do for her, from whom religion had taken away all that was dear to her.
She soon perceived that she was deserted by him also, and was not astonished, for he had acted only as all her other friends had done. Fear had influenced some, pity others, since they could do nothing to help her, and shrunk from suffering uselessly on account of her sorrow. Some also there were who were sceptical of this Anne Radcliffe-like adventure. In the enlightenment of modern Paris, such a thing seemed improbable, and, shaking their heads almost suspiciously, they asked:
“Who knows what is concealed under all this?”
Yes, Paris is enlightened, is throbbing with progress and with generous ideas, but it is frivolous and superficial. Here events follow one another on short, rapid waves, like those of the Mediterranean, each submerged wave scattering its débris on the one succeeding. There is no depth, no durability. “Poor Madame Ebsen! Ah! yes, it is dreadful....” But the burning of the shops known as L’Univers, the woman hacked to pieces and found wrapped in a number of Le Temps, in which she had formerly taken so much comfort, the suicide of the two little Cazares, soon had more recent claims on compassion. The only house in which she continued to be received with unfailing kindness, mingled with much personal gratitude, was the hôtel in the Rue Vézelay; but this was suddenly closed, the Count and Countess d’Arlot, with their child, having gone to Nice, after obtaining the communication of a confidential report on the Inquiry of the Court of Corbeil.
To the report, the evidence of which was collected still more ingeniously and shrewdly than in the Damour affair, and which gave a detailed description of the château, the schools, and the Retreat, there were added the names of the Workers — les euvérières as young Nicolas called them — actually living at Port-Sauveur:
Sophie Chalmette, aged 36, born at La Rochelle.
Marie Souchette, aged 20, Petit-Port.
Bastienne Gelinot, aged 18, Athis-Mons.
Louise Braun, aged 27, Berne.
Catherine Looth, aged 32, United States.
As for Éline Ebsen, she was travelling for the Work, in Switzerland, Germany, and England, with no fixed residence, and corresponded regularly with her mother.
For some time, in fact, thanks to Pastor Birk, Mme. Ebsen had been able to write to her daughter, but she was in the dark as to her place of residence, for the addresses were supplied at Port-Sauveur, where all her letters were sent. At first, furious and desperate in tone, with heart-rending appeals, abuse, and even threats against the banker and his wife, the mother’s letters were soon modified, for Eline refused to reply to such insulting attacks against friends whom she respected, and who were worthy of the highest esteem. From that time the maternal complaint became more humble, more timid. She confined herself to pictures of her solitary, desolate life, but they in no wise succeeded in softening the rigid, cold mood of the young girl. That was as impersonal as her writing, which seemed to have congealed into the long, regular English style, with no shading, no fine strokes. There was news of her health, vague exalted talk about the service of God, and always some mystical invocation, some expression of affection for Jesus, replacing the loving enthusiasm, the tender messages and kisses of the old days.
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